Which is exactly the same for every profession. If you have a plumber friend and have issues with plumbing, who you call first, a random contractor or your friend? Replace "plumber/plumbing" with any profession and the answer is usually the same, you call your friend first, at least to get some more understanding before reaching out to a contractor.
I was just wondering about what the sum total of the (otherwise) "billable" hours might amount to, were they to be accounted for as a cost of business for FAANG.-
If however your tech friends help you with Windows/Android/Apple issues, MS/Google/etc. still get paid and save up on support costs.
These two situations aren't even remotely comparable.
This was kind of like what I was getting at: Kind of wondering what the total savings for FAANG on support costs would amount to, factoring in all this "offloaded" support that they hand off to their own customers (or, affiliated tech-savvy individuals).-
I concurr.-
PS. On a related tangent the amount of unpaid "support" tech knowledgeable individuals are doing for (particularly) FAANG is enormous.-